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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581046">the greatest of these</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownbananna/pseuds/unknownbananna'>unknownbananna</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>More tags to be added, Multi, Weddings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:48:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581046</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownbananna/pseuds/unknownbananna</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in life.</p><p>Chapter 1: Will and Alyss are finally married. Halt is sentimental.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alyss Mainwaring/Will Treaty, Halt O'Carrick &amp; Will Treaty, Pauline duLacy/Halt O'Carrick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the greatest of these</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> “And now these three remain: Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> — 1 Corinthians 13:13 </em>
</p><hr/><p>"And about time, too!"</p><p>Halt's vision blurred, and he looked down into his lap to hide the tears that ran freely down his face. Once, he would've bitten them back before they could fall. He would've been ashamed of such a blatant show of feeling. But those were the days of his youth, his pride. The days he lived alone. Now, those days were far behind him.</p><p>And Will and Alyss were married.</p><p>Halt could scarcely believe it. He dashed a hand across his face and looked up to see Will and Alyss at last break apart from their kiss—their wedding kiss, because they were <em>married—their</em> eyes sparkling and their cheeks red from smiling so long. They had eyes only for each other. Halt remembered his own wedding, remembered looking into Pauline's eyes as they committed to loving each other for the rest of their lives, and felt tears welling up again. It was a beautiful promise to make.</p><p>Somehow it felt that all these years of war and strife had led them here, to this moment. Halt had been little more than a child himself at Hackham Heath when his life was saved by a young sergeant with bravery enough for ten—barely more than a child when that sergeant's wife saved him also, when he held their orphaned infant in his arms and promised to give him a chance at a future. The years had spun by. Will learning to walk, Will making friends, Will standing in a nervous line with the other wards on Choosing Day.</p><p>It felt like a lifetime ago and yet no time at all since Will had become his apprentice. All gangly limbs and bright eyes awkward questions, with cleverness and courage and kindness besides. It hadn't taken long for Halt to realize he thought of the boy as his own. It hadn't taken long for Will to save the kingdom (the first of many times). And it wasn't long after that that he watched him sail away on a wolfship, bound for Skandia as a slave.</p><p>The next years were long and slow. Losing Will, finding him again, fighting a war they didn't ask for and coming home. Halt remembered the boy with sunken cheeks and haunted eyes and compared him to the newly married man before him, all smiles and joy. Will had always been resilient. Halt had held him through the worst nights and Will had come out stronger than before—older, perhaps, and different than before, but stronger for it.</p><p>There were years of training and exams. Christmas presents given and received. New boots when old ones were too small. Sick days spent playing nurse. That God-forsaken mandola (of course Halt knew what it was called; he'd <em>bought</em> it). Two recurves and a longbow, painstakingly handcrafted piece by piece. A dozen or so serious wounds, half of which had landed the both of them in the castle infirmary—Will in a bed, Halt half-asleep in an uncomfortable chair nearby. Several arguments. Several more heart-to-hearts. More hugs than Halt ever imagined giving. Countless dinners, infinite annoyance, innumerable questions. Really, five years had been no time at all.</p><p>Training him had been an honor. Watching Will grow from a hesitant apprentice to a confident man, a master of his craft in his own right, was a privilege and a joy. And now Halt was happy to step back. One day, Will would take an apprentice of his own and pass on his skills. Perhaps he and Alyss would have children, would raise them to be good and kind the way Halt and Pauline had tried to do for them. Halt had poured himself into this man before him—had poured his time, his days and nights, his words and his talent and his <em>love</em> into Will, and now Will was grown enough to do the same for someone else. <em>Would</em> do the same for someone else. Because if Halt had learned anything about love since he came to Araluen and found it for himself, it was that it kept giving. That love poured into someone wouldn't stay because it inevitably spilled over into someone else. That this is how the world spins on—love poured into love, into love, into love.</p><p>Alyss threw her arms around Will to the accompaniment of the crowd's cheers and clapping. Halt remembered a much younger Alyss, with serious gray eyes and a seriouser voice, telling him that she had always wanted to marry Will as a child. It was always obvious that they'd long held a special regard for each other. Halt and Pauline were both old enough to remember them with chubby cheeks and baby teeth, holding hands because they were best friends. And certainly they were no less now. Their friendship had merely grown into something new. A tree planted in fertile soil, a sprout tended and cared for until it blossomed into something lovely.</p><p>Will and Alyss broke apart. Will grabbed Alyss' hand and raised it in his own, like a victory over everything that had tried to keep them from making it to this moment. Halt instinctively reached for his own wife's hand as they watched their once-apprentices smile out at the crowd for the first time as a triumphantly married couple.</p><p>Will had his father's messy curls and his mother's eyes, but Halt recognized Will's bearing and his smile as his own. Halt was grateful to Will's parents every day for giving him his life—and yet, he knew the greatest gift they'd given him was the chance to impart something of himself into this remarkable person they'd loved first.</p><p>Will's eyes met Halt's. They were the same warm brown Halt had known since the day he first gazed into them, standing in the wreckage of a stranger's family. They had become older and wiser since then, losing their innocence and some of their shine, but they had never lost their warmth. Halt found himself overcome with emotion that lodged in the back of his throat and threatened again to spill out from his eyes. He couldn't find the words to speak, nor could he find it in himself to give one of his customary nods. Instead he smiled wide and hoped Will understood.</p><p>Will smiled back, and Halt knew that he did. They never had been a pair to communicate the most important things with words.</p><p>Will and Alyss walked hand in hand down the aisle lined with well-wishing friends and family. There was a slight hurry in their steps, and a smile touched Halt's mouth as he noticed it. He remembered that feeling well. He was glad for Will to have the chance to experience it.</p><p>No, Will didn't need him any more. That was all right, Halt thought. It was for the best. It was how things went on. Children grow and leave their parents and become cultivators of their own—cultivators of gardens, of students, of children, of beautiful things that would continue and last.</p><p>The years had been long. But for this, Halt thought, they were worth every second.</p>
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